You may have overheard marketers discussing "niches" online and have asked yourself "What is Niche Marketing"? The question makes a lot of sense, and is important when thinking about internet marketing. 

Traditional advertising mediums are well suited to mass audiences first, and more specific, niche audiences second. This includes such popular media as TV, Radio and, to a lesser extent magazines. However, in the offline world, magazines probably come the closest to being as "niche specific" as the online world is. By now, you have probably figured out that "niche" is really just a specific group of people who are interested, or passionate, about a given topic. 

In offline advertising, that is why you have magazines centered on different topics or interests such as "Field & Stream" and "Men's Fitness" or "Architectural Digest". TV and Radio tend to draw larger, general interest groups or larger groups of people. For example MTV might target the 15-25 age demographic as its prime market for advertisers. 

However, if the offline world is trying to hit the target with a 'shotgun' approach, the Internet uses a narrowly centered laser-approach to obtain customers. Thus, it is highly possible to make a living focusing on a single product items and their accessories, rather than entire customer groups. The reason for this is the the nature of how people search for things on the Internet. Because the Internet is "interactive" and responding to the intentional input of a user, it is much more specific compared with TV or Radio, which are passive in nature. People online are typing in search requests every second of every day, looking for something specifically, not flipping on the TV to hear reruns of Gilligan's Island or turning on the radio to listen to Howard Stern. Your job as an online marketer is to sift through these requests, and bring them to the niche site you are targeting. 

What is a good example of a highly targeted niche site? Perhaps a site that markets to a specific type of baby stroller. Not many different strollers, but a single brand of stroller. For more popular items, you may just want to focus in on one particular model of a brand. The point is you'll need to research the niche appropriately and make sure that they keywords for that niche have enough traffic behind them to make sure your site will get sufficient visitors. The bigger the market, the more specific and tightly focused your niche within that market should be. The flip side of this idea is making sure that the keywords are not too competitive. However, there are easy ways to find low competition keywords for your chosen niche. You'll also need to find out what is hot and popular.